First Time Kegging - A Question Regarding Hops

[cyraxx]

Hi Everyone, I just kegged for the first time on Monday, and the beer was actually my first all grain, a pale ale. I was planning on burst carbing, so I set my regulator to 30 psi and left it.

I checked it the next day, and the pressure had fallen to between 20 and 25 psi. I said whatever and dropped it down to 15 psi.

I tasted it today, and I was a bit disappointed. It wasn't very carbonated, which I was kind of expecting, but it wasn't very hoppy.

I took a juice glass out to the shed, maybe 8oz, and poured some off of the tap. I discarded the first two pours so that I wouldn't get any sediment, and sampled the 3rd. All of these 3 pours appeared to have much in them, and they all looked the same.

My first question is regarding sediment in the keg. I think that the beer smelled a little yeasty, but it could be my mind playing tricks. Would the fact that what I drank from the keg was so close to the bottom affect the hoppiness? Would the fact that it isn't that carbonated affect the hoppiness that much?

I definitely remember it smelling hoppy when I kegged it.

For full disclosure, it was a 5 gallon batch at 1.054, finished at 1.012.

1 oz Cascade at 60, 0.5 oz of both Cascade and Centennial at 20, 0.5 oz of both Cascade and Centennial at 0.

I am by no means expecting this to be a hop bomb, but I just couldn't smell/taste any at all. Thanks for any help that you can give me.

 

[_JP_]

Remember that a lot of the aroma (maybe most) gets "scrubbed" off by the yeast during fermentation.

Perhaps next time bottle a few while kegging for a "control" and then open them after conditioning a few weeks and compare to the keg's beer. Right now, the lack of hoppiness might not be related to the keg. I'm guessing it's not.

No worries though. Nice thing about serving from a keg is you can dry hop in the keg. Get a sack, put some hops with some clean rocks or marbles in it, and drop in the keg. Set pressure to 12-15 psi while it's chilled and give it a week or 2.

 

[cyraxx]

I cold crashed the beer for a few days so that it would be ready once it was in the keg, and when I transferred it was distinctly hoppy, so I don't think loss during fermentation is the problem.

My friends and I are brewing again on Saturday, and we'll be drinking the pale ale when we do so I'll have to report back. Hopefully it will be properly carbed by then so I can rule that out.